ZM's Fletch, Vaughan & Hayley: Fletch, Vaughan & Hayley's Fact of the Day (of the Week!) - Roller Coaster Week!

NZME 10/12/23 - Episode Page - 28m - PDF Transcript

Transcript
Show Notes

The ZM Podcast Network.

Play ZM's Fletch, Born and Haley.

Hello and welcome to Fact of the Day of the Week.

This week, Vaughn the Carney straps us in as he corkscrews us through a week of roller coaster Fact of the Days.

It's time for...

Fact of the Day, Day, Day, Day, Day!

Today's Fact of the Day and this week is Roller Coaster Week at Fact of the Day.

I must actually find the email to say thank you for the person that pointed me in this direction.

Where is he? What is his name? His name is Mike.

And Mike Hiscox.

I think Mike lives in the UK.

That's his name and he is sick of this nonsense.

Okay, sorry.

Mike H is his email with anybody.

He composed this in his work email and then sent it to his personal email and then sent it to me.

His personal email.

Rockin' a yahoo.

Is he?

He's rockin' a yahoo.

Yahoo.co.nz.

He said I found some facts. I thought you might be able to use one of these.

Some of them that we have used before and I was just like well actually the first one he sent was about a roller coaster.

So I was like that's cool.

And then we could do roller coaster week. It would be enough interesting facts about roller coasters.

So today's Fact of the Day is the first roller coaster in 1884 was...

I don't know if I'll be trusting in 1884 roller coaster.

It only went real slow.

Okay.

It only went real slow.

How slow?

It was nine kilometres an hour.

And you sat sideways in it.

Oh really?

Like side.

I hate when you go on a bus or a train and there's the worst.

Backwards?

Backwards is worse.

I'm not at backwards.

Side just puts you right off.

Yeah.

I got to start facing forward.

That's my way to travel.

It was by a man who had made his millions in the hosiery business.

Stockings and such.

And they got penny hos.

LaMarcus Thompson.

He lived in Central...

Not Central America.

Middle America.

Yeah.

But when he got sick he was like, well, I'm going to go and live by the seaside.

And the seaside he chose to live by was New York.

Oh yeah.

And he was...

He did not like that all of the attractions in New York were what he can...

What he considered to be hedonistic places like brothels and saloons.

And he said we needed some good old fashioned fun.

Yeah.

So he invented a roller coaster that, yeah, you sat in sideways and from that high point

it just rolled down a series of ups and down hills.

Oh yeah.

And it was on the Inconi Island along the pier.

Yep.

So for a start you were just looking at the pier and then he said, you know what?

We could just paint anything and put it up and we could do it like it's a tour of America.

So it was called a switchback railway.

That was what the first roller coaster was called.

And you would look out one way and go down and then you get to the end and they'd put

it on a little lift and they'd lift it up and then it would go back down the other way.

Oh.

And when you would face different ways in each direction so that you would see a different

painted scene.

Wow.

So that was the first one that was like commercially invented.

Are there photos of it?

Yep.

There's old black and white photos and drawings of it.

Sounds like it would be rickety.

Oh, it would be very rickety.

Have you been on a wooden roller coaster?

Yes.

They're so fun.

I've been on the one and what's one in California?

Not so very farm.

Yes.

That's the big one.

I've been on that one.

That's amazing.

For the opening of classic 90s family sitcoms.

Step by step.

D bar D.

Fresh turtle.

Sure.

They would be in San Fran.

Not so very farms.

No, because they have few...

Inland, is it?

Inland.

Yeah.

No, no, no.

They photoshopped it.

It's the world's worst photoshopping.

Is it?

If you remember the TV show Step by Step, it was like a modern day Brady Bunch, Dad with

Kids meets Woman with Kids, Patrick, Duffy, Susan, Summers.

Oh, what a comical mixing of different families.

I remember there being a rollercoaster on the intro.

At the start, yeah.

There was a rollercoaster right at the end.

That was a wooden rollercoaster.

That's very cool.

That one at Nottsbury Farm.

Very cool.

Yeah.

So that was invented and opened in 1884, the Switchback Railway of Coney Island, to stop

people seeking sinful activities, such as brothels and saloons.

Yeah.

I've got a lot of other factor the days about rollercoasters.

I'm really excited for this one.

Tomorrow.

Yes.

I will teach you about a rollercoaster that for half the day worked and for half the day

played.

What?

Okay.

You've hooked me on.

Can we go live Friday from the rollercoaster at Rainbow's Inn?

You can.

Absolutely.

We can sell that out for you.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

It's good.

It's over in like 20 seconds.

The corks grow.

Is that it?

Yeah.

That's it.

Play.

Good morning, Haley.

Today's spec of the day.

I told you I was going to tell you about the rollercoaster before rollercoasters.

Okay.

Are we going to make it to the end of this week without?

Sorry, my brain just went Ronan Keeson.

What?

It should be in the background every day.

I don't know if it should be.

Oh, come on.

Rino Chili Peppers love rollercoaster.

You give me that funny feeling in my tummy.

No, Ronan Keeson is going to be Ronan.

It's got to be Ronan.

How many songs about rollercoasters have they been?

Let me type in a rollercoaster.

We have Bleaches Rollercoaster.

Who?

Bleaches.

Bleaches Rollercoaster.

Oh, that was the guy that was...

Bleaches.

Yeah.

This is the guy that was...

Jack Antonoff.

Yeah, Jack Antonoff.

Right.

His band.

There is that song.

There is Aaron Watson has a song called Rollercoaster Ride.

Jonas Brothers have a 2019 song.

Robin Thicke.

Ronan Keating.

Ronan Keating, Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Ronan.

The uncancelled Robin Thicke when his dad died, eh?

Or did we re-cancel him?

I don't know.

Where's he at on the canceling day?

It's just soft.

Okay, carry on.

Na na na na na.

Okay, perfect.

I hadn't even crossed my mind.

One of the earliest coasters in America

wasn't a full-time rollercoaster.

That's...

I told you rollercoasters invented yesterday.

Yes.

By a man who wanted to take New Yorkers away from

the debauchery and sin for the entertainment.

Well, there was a rollercoaster before that.

It was the Monch Chunk Switchback Railway.

Monch Chunk.

I hate when someone calls me a Monch Chunk.

Sam, I'm always like, excuse me.

It's been a long winter.

I don't know what I'm looking at.

I'm a little Monch Chunkies.

I'm a little bit Monch Chunkies.

I'm Monch...

I'm Monch Chunkies and I've always...

I'm Monch Tomacha.

Now I'm Chunk.

So this was a gravity railway.

It was built in 1872 to haul coal.

Right.

Between coal mines.

Oh, my God.

It's the original gold rush from Rainbow's Inc.

Correct.

So it would go up.

Yeah.

It would...

When it was empty, it was pretty light.

So they'd have some oxen to pull it up there or some

draft horses to pull it up the hill.

They'd load it up with one and a half tons of coal

and then just be like, huh, push.

And it would go, whew!

Down there, down a track.

There's a rocket down there.

50 miles an hour through the valley.

So it got to the point where everyone was like...

It was his parcel house and shit, it looks fun.

Oh, that was a good time.

Any chance we could sit in it?

So then in 1873, it was...

In the morning, it would haul coal.

Yeah.

And it would haul it back up empty all the way to the top.

And then people would jump in and they'd pay 75 cents each.

Yep.

Which would have been a decent amount back in the day.

75 cents each and then they would ride it.

Nine miles.

How do you get back?

You walk.

Or you could sit in it while it was being pulled

but then these draft horses, they used to pull it empty,

not full of people.

30,000 people rode it in 1873.

Wow.

You might be thinking seat belts?

Nope.

Hold on.

Like in the coal carriage?

Yeah.

I was looking up photos, obviously no video of it,

but there are some photos and people had taken their own chairs.

Like they were sitting on crates and boxes.

You wouldn't want to get a sooty bum.

No.

One of those warehouse $12 chairs, those white ones.

The plastic one.

I think it was $12.

Is that the inflation hit, a beautiful white plastic lawn chair?

You should be like five bucks.

You want to wait till a boxing day sale if you can't afford to wait

because you'll get those things for five bucks.

Fourteen.

Yeah.

Fourteen is the current white, classic, resin chair white.

I tell you what.

Yeah.

I don't mind seeing one collapse under some weight.

Awesome.

That little crack before the collapse.

I'm a leaner on a chair even outside.

Oh my gosh.

One of those I'll be leaning on and it'll be wobbling and then you go down.

Do your wife not say, don't lean on the chair.

It's because it's like that Aaron.

Don't lean on the chair.

I always say that the kids don't lean on the chair.

My mum still says that.

Break it in because you fall over.

Don't tell me what to do.

I'm an adult now.

Yeah.

Don't tell me what to do.

So the railway, the munch chalk, isn't there anymore?

It got taken away.

It never got any safe, but also no reports of any accidents or deaths as a result.

As a result of it.

They were just, the carriages would have been like so heavy.

There's no way they would have ever come off, right?

Yeah.

And sometimes we cotton wrap ourselves these days, don't we?

Fifty miles an hour.

What's that?

Sixty miles an hour is a hundred Ks.

So 50 miles an hour is up over 80.

You're rocking along on a riggedy ass old track.

I would have thought coming off would have been a very real, it was straight.

But it was also straight down a hill.

And no loops or anything.

No loops.

No loopy loops.

Wimps.

No loop.

No loopy loops.

So today's fact of the day is before someone built an official roller coaster, there was

just a really steep hill that they used to bring coal down on a track.

And they used to let you ride it in the afternoons.

Play.

Zudians, Fletch, Vaughn and Hayley.

Oh my God.

I think I just shut Vote Compass and I was on the last page.

I'll never know who to vote for now.

Ah, I was just actually shut it to Google how old when Catherine the Great, Catherine the

Second in Russia.

You might be thinking, but Vaughn, I thought it was roller coaster week.

It is roller coaster week.

We can't bail out on it.

Because somebody messaged me saying, have you heard of the Russian mountain?

The Russian mountain.

Is that like a splash mountain?

No, I haven't.

Well, imagine splash mountain.

Yeah.

But then a Russian cold snap hits and the hydro slide has an ice coating to it.

And you have.

You have a Russian mountain, which was predated roller coasters, but technically weren't roller

coasters, but technically weren't toboggan tracks, but close, but also technically not

a water slide.

Yeah.

Okay.

Russian mountains.

The first one was opened in the 15th century.

So what is that?

The 1600s.

By the way, this annoys me too.

It annoys me as well.

I feel like we shouldn't be saying 21st century when the first two numbers of our century that

we're currently in.

I know.

20-0.

Because no one says I'm in my 37th year when they're 36.

I know.

No one says that.

That's technically correct.

I hate it.

I've gone really good.

18th century.

I hate it as much as it confuses me and I have to stop down every time I'm saying it to think

what century we're in.

Same.

So we're in the 21st century.

Are you okay?

Yeah.

I'm just messaging my bicep.

I've got a little knot in it.

I'm just digging in.

Aggressively, might I say.

Yeah.

Aggressively rubbing yourself.

I just want to look like you might have pulled something.

I'm scratching.

He's rubbing.

We're all over the show.

We're in the 21st century, 1600s.

Russians started building giant wooden slides that had sides on them.

Yeah.

And then when the winter would start to come, they'd obviously pour a bit of water down

there.

The Russian winters were so cold it would freeze and stay frozen all winter where then

they would get a block of ice, a thin sheet of ice.

So they would put ice on ice and then sit on top of that ice on some sort of seat.

Slide down these things called Russian mountains.

Geez.

You'd go fast.

50 miles an hour.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

So what's that?

Is it 80?

80.

Far out.

Over just over 80.

Helping with the signs on these shoots.

Yes.

Slippery as well.

Yeah.

Because if you turned your body weight, you go whoop.

It was the old days.

So they were high, but not like high.

Not a safety was it there?

Not high, just slight high.

Not open high.

Okay.

So it was very popular amongst the upper class.

Catherine, the second of Russia, when it got to her.

No, I just checked.

She lived from 1729 to 1796.

Is she the great?

She was the second great.

Oh, yeah.

She is Catherine the Great.

Okay.

Oh, yes.

Okay.

There was a Catherine before, but this was the first.

Did she have a penchant for...

Is this the one that the TV shows about?

Yeah, Catherine the Great.

That was good.

That is good.

I finished a series and then forgot to start the next one.

Oh, watch it.

Nicholas Holt plays her husband.

Oh, no, I didn't like that.

I hated it.

You didn't like it.

I hated it.

Why?

I don't know why I just hated it.

Really?

Yeah, I tried.

I think you might be wrong, hon.

Yeah, I know.

Go again.

No, go again.

Once you get used to Nicholas Holt, just being a horrible person.

There were some, definitely some funny lines in it.

Yeah.

Go again.

Maybe I'll give it a bit more.

Go again.

So she loved the Russian mountains so much that when it got to summertime, she wouldn't

have it.

So she had one built for her.

Now, this sounds dangerous if you've ever been on.

You know, if you see in a factory a long list, a long thing of rollers and you just push a

box down and it's just-

Oh my God, like airport security?

Yes.

I always go, pfft.

Yeah, pfft.

Yeah.

Have you ever been, I've been to a couple of parks for kids where they've got one of

those in place of a slide.

Oh.

Now, maybe kids are lighter so they skim over the top, but my fat bottom got pinched.

Oh, hon.

So this could be dangerous.

So she put in rollers and giant, a giant Russian mountain with rollers.

Okay.

And rolled in it because she said she loved it so much.

So people would come to her house because she was the only one that could afford to

do this.

Yeah.

And she would go down-

Look, I don't, yeah, I look, I don't want to be negative, but it does sound like you've,

on roller coaster week, you've brought in slides and luges and-

I was thinking like General Theme Park.

Yeah.

The roller that she had in hers is where we get roller coaster from.

Okay.

Apologies.

I'm sorry.

Because they would coast down.

Yes.

Okay.

On the rolling.

Oh, roller coaster.

They would coast down roller and that's why when it spread around and there were these,

the rides that predated what we call roller coasters now, we're called roller coasters,

but you were literally just coasting on some rollers.

Yeah.

And they had to make sense.

I've never thought about the name.

How dare you, sir?

I know.

Well, no, sometimes you go off script and I'm just saying it did sound like we were

doing slides.

Yeah.

And luges.

And we got the evolution of, and then we included some Russian stars and leaders and monarchies.

And then we got to it.

What's your pro-Russian now?

Yeah, what's your stance?

Russia.

Big fact.

Russia of old.

Right.

The Russia of old.

A fascinating country.

Yeah.

A fascinating country.

So today is 15th of the day.

You're telling me you're turning down a 1700s Russian Faberge egg?

Oh, absolutely not.

I wouldn't.

I'd have a Faberge egg.

I'd have a Faberge.

I wouldn't know.

And I'd say to people, check out, have you checked out my Faberge egg and shout out would

say, stop putting the Faberge egg out.

It doesn't go with the Scandinavian decor.

It wouldn't.

It's too glittery.

It's too glamorous.

It's too much.

Right next door to the Russians.

It's the old time.

They probably had their own Scandinavian fabric.

The other eggs in the middle of them.

And then you open that one.

That's a Babushka.

And then there's another egg.

That's a Russian nested doll.

Nesting doll.

That one.

That's another doll.

And then the last doll's always a bit like...

It's not even a doll.

It's like a little nugget.

It's a nugget.

It's a nugget of wood.

You'd always lose the little nugget.

Yes.

Because you'd line them up and then the nug would fall off over and roll off the table.

It would roll and coast off the table, bringing us back around.

So today's fact of the day is that Russian mountains, or what they were called, predated

roller coasters, but only worked in the winter.

Today's fact of the day we continue roller coaster week.

Good.

Today we're going to do some wham, wham, wham.

We're doing the fastest, the longest and the highest.

Okay.

Wow.

Fastest roller coaster.

We go to Abu Dhabi.

Oh.

I didn't know they had roller coasters.

Abu Dhabi.

They've got everything.

Yeah.

I'm also surprised the only one of these three things is in Abu Dhabi or the United Arab

Emirates, because they do things like they build extravagantly expensive things just

to say that's the something, something in the world.

Is there a outdoor theme park in Dubai?

Because they've got everything for tourists.

Abu Dhabi's just up the road.

Yeah, I know.

But Abu Dhabi, I don't remember their being.

I've been there a couple of times.

I don't remember their being a massive theme park.

Ferrari world?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, I remember the, I remember the car racing stuff.

Is that got a roller coaster?

Ferrari world has the Formula Rosa.

It is a roller coaster that was opened in 2010.

It is the world's fastest roller coaster where it will reach a maximum speed of 240 kilometers

an hour.

Yes.

Is it one of those ones?

Is it one of the fastest?

Yes, you reach.

Oh, no.

Is it an electromagnet where they, is that the one, like, you know, the Superman ride

it on the Gold Coast, where it goes from zero to a bajillion, and it just goes, and you're

super fast.

I love those.

So it is, the track is 2.195 kilometers long, and you'll get rounded in one and a half minutes.

So you're honking, and you reach 4.8G, 4.8G's at the takeoff of the Formula Rosa.

Here's a bloody Formula Rosa POV, world's fastest coaster, pooling.

Wow.

That's an incredible video.

Oh, wow.

They look so much fun.

I encourage you, not while you're driving, but to YouTube, Formula Rosa POV, far out

your hurtling.

The longest roller coaster to ride around the world is the Steel Dragon 2000, which held

the title.

It's in Japan.

Japan?

Japan.

Yeah.

It's at the Nagashima Spa Land Resort amusement park.

That's a mouthful.

Cut it right back down.

That sounds nicely.

You can have a roller coaster and then a hop hop.

Oh, my God.

You hop into a lovely little spa.

It's the longest roller coaster in the world.

It is four kilometers long, and we'll take you a long time to get around it, because

it's not like super fast, but it's very up, down, round.

Like old school roller coaster, big up at the start, the rest of it's kind of woodly-doodly.

Woodly-doodly.

You heard it here first.

You heard it, though.

It's woodly-doodly.

That's the term.

The highest roller coaster in the world.

Is this that one in America?

Yes, the king-to-car.

What is the one they built and they had to shut down or redo?

Was that a Hydra slide?

You know, people kept dying on it.

You went too vertical, and people were hitting the, where it started to slope again or hitting

it too hard.

Yeah.

I'm not familiar with the situation.

And it shoots straight up, it goes 90 degrees up.

Is that the one you showed a video of yesterday?

I showed you the picture of the king-to-car.

Yeah, I've been on a version of that.

There's one at Knott's Prairie Farm called the Accelerator.

Same thing.

It pulls you back and then shoots you fast forward and you go up almost 90 and then down.

This just takes off.

You hit 5G in it.

So even the Gs are more than the, but it's because you go straight up.

From the ground level, you go up 139 meters straight up.

Yeah.

And then at the top, you turn over and then as it comes down, it twists and twists and

throws you down.

Almost like a roller coaster that goes up the Tower of Tira and then goes down.

Down the other side.

Like if you're familiar with Dream World.

I would think it would be higher than the Tower of Tira.

Yeah, maybe.

It's an incredibly high structure and then just shoots you to the rest of the year.

I know.

That's roller coaster week this week, but maybe we should give it a break next week,

but maybe in a few weeks, we could do log flume week.

Someone did suggest log flume.

Because how could you do log flume right on the heels of roller coaster?

No.

I'm just watching The King of the Car, bloody POV video from Six Flags.

It goes straight up.

Yeah.

On your mind.

Yeah.

It's very tall and very vertical.

With a VR headset.

They could film something that would adequately give you the cheers.

You wouldn't get the G, but you'd get the feeling.

Here it goes.

It's going up.

Man, that is insanely tall.

It's still going up.

Still going up.

It goes up vertical.

And...

Whoa!

Going down.

It goes up vertical.

Down.

That's insane.

That's pretty wild.

I mean, I'd just...

I'd love to go on it.

Jump on YouTube and watch a whole lot of different rollercoasters around the world.

So today's fact of the day was a little summation of the fastest, longest and highest rollercoasters

in the world.

Play.

Zed Eames, Fletch, Vaughn and Hayley.

It's rollercoaster week, in fact, of the day.

I've been loving it, Vaughn.

Been telling you.

Thank you very much, Hayley.

I've been telling you facts about rollercoasters.

And today it does have to take a grim turn.

Oh, dear.

It's going to take a little bit of a grim turn.

People, the deaths related to rollercoasters.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

What are you looking up there?

I wanted to know how many people have died from shark sharks.

Oh, this is the thing.

So the Wikipedia page, costapedia.net, list of deadly rollercoaster accidents.

The oldest one is 1930.

So like...

Okay.

90...

Huh.

Years ago.

What is it?

93.

There's seven left.

97.

That's 93 years.

Why did that take so long for me to work out?

I panicked.

You did panic.

Yeah, you math panicked.

Math panicked.

The first one, 1930.

So really, when you take into account it's been 93 years, it's 90 years, we haven't

been here for years.

I've math panicked again.

It's not bad at all.

Okay.

How many people all up?

There have been 37 reported deaths on rollercoasters.

Okay.

That's safer than sharks.

It's safer than something in the ocean.

It's...

Well, I wouldn't even say sharks is...

Shark deaths very few and far between, given the amount of humans in the ocean at any

given time.

And the amount of sharks in the ocean at any given time.

Yeah.

Cars, bikes, all things.

Guns, drugs, boats, crocodiles, hippopotamuses.

Yep.

People choking on lollies.

Yeah.

Trains.

Smoking.

Yeah.

Yep.

Smoking.

COVID.

Yeah.

37 recorded deaths from rollercoasters.

18 recorded from mechanical failures.

10 recorded from falls from rollercoasters.

Oh, that's bad.

Five from people who have been struck by the rollercoaster, maybe not even went on the

rollercoaster, but it's a death by rollercoasters or a house.

Well, they were walking on a rollercoaster track.

Four from others.

Okay.

Others.

It is death.

Other.

So, other.

And the others interested me, too, when I had other.

I was like, what's your decapitation?

The fire in the whole rollercoaster at Silver Dollar City in 1980 and operators switched

the train to go into the service area unaware that riders were on.

The entrance to the service area had a low roof, all passengers escaped serious injury

except for one man who did not hear the shouts to duck.

And he was killed.

Oh.

That was in 1980.

What?

Another one.

And this is a bit of an, this is one where Raging Bullets, Six Flags, Great America in

2003, a girl with a heart condition died after riding on the rollercoaster.

She had a no-one heart condition and had been seeing a cardiologist, but had said she didn't

because the sign at the thing said, if you have a cardiologist, you shouldn't be honest.

In 1944, in the other category, a fire started at the Palisades Park, which destroyed the

park's rides.

And unfortunately, some people were stuck on the rollercoaster when the fire broke out.

They died.

And Loch Ness Monster at Bush Gardens in Williamsburg, a park employee found blood on the last car.

Unidentified reasons, probably a nosebleed.

That's not, I wouldn't count that as a death.

Wait.

That's under blood.

Yeah.

But it didn't add up to our, it didn't, those are the four things under other.

Right.

But there was some beer.

That's why.

Okay.

So it's not, it's not, okay.

It's terrible that there had been that many, but it's not what you would have thought.

Falling would be terrible though.

Some of them, I've never had that problem when the belt goes over and there's lots

of room.

There's never room.

No, no.

It's clicked in.

But we, because when I went to Ramazin not too long ago, there's that big one that you

go up and then it goes over.

And I remember being upside down and feeling like, this isn't enough.

I feel weakly in here.

It's because of the weightlessness when you're upside down.

Yeah.

Because I remember someone explained that to me.

It feels like that gets loose.

But it also is coinciding with the fact that it's at that moment where you're weightless.

Yeah, I know.

Yeah.

Love that ride.

I love that ride.

It's so good.

Yeah.

It's really something.

Some of the more interesting ones.

In 2011, a man died on the Superman ride of steel at Darien Lake because he was a war

veteran who had, had both of his legs amputated.

And so he slipped out from under there because he couldn't put the feet on the ground to

secure himself.

It's dark, but let's take into account how many millions of people literally on, I think

at last count, there was early in the week, I suppose there's something in the vicinity

of six and a half thousand roller coasters around the world and people are constantly

riding them and have been for nearly 100 years.

No.

It's a thrill ride.

And most of these things that have been taken care of by now.

So today's factor today, the grim side to finish roller coaster week on is there have

been 37 recorded deaths on roller coasters in 93 years.

Fact of the day, day, day, day, day.

Yeah.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.

Vaughan buckles us in for a Loop-de-Loop through Roller Coaster Week!

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